by Aiden Bates
“See? Couldn’t even make it three minutes, let alone three days,” he said.
He went to grab for the pregnancy test, but I stopped him.
“Pedro,” I said, still trying to get my breath. “If it’s negative. If we’re not pregnant. Will… Will you… Will you still stay with me? Like not in the apartment, but like—”
Pedro kissed me again. He pulled me up into his arms, and I melted into him, trying my very best to give him everything, anything I could. Regardless of what the test said, I wanted to be here with him for as long as I could be.
“Of course I’ll stay, angel. If you want, we can throw the damn test away. We don’t have to look, okay? If you don’t want to know yet, we can just find out the old-fashioned way when you start to get a little bigger,” Pedro said, looking me right in my eyes.
I couldn’t help but feel the prickle of tears in my eyes.
“I love you,” Pedro said. He said it slowly, firmly, with conviction.
I nodded. “I love you too, Pedro.”
“I’m going to be here, Charlie. Even when you get gas and start peeing every ten minutes and send me out to go get mustard and cinnamon rolls at two in the morning. I’m going to be here.”
I laughed and leaned into his chest, and caught sight of the test sitting innocuously on the counter.
“I hope you mean that, Pedro.”
“What? Of course I do.”
“Good, though I’ve always been more of a ketchup and muffins sort of man,” I added before picking up the test and revealing the results.
Pedro let out a whoop.
Positive. We were pregnant, and yes, I did mean we.
20
Pedro
“Nooooo!” Charlie half-whined and half-howled in protest.
“Yes. Yes, Charlie. Yes,” I insisted.
“Oh my god, no! It’s awkward!”
“How is it awkward?” I asked. “Plus, you should have said something before we left. How come you didn’t say anything earlier?”
“Because!” Charlie said.
I looked at him and raised my eyebrows because, no, I didn’t understand what that “because” was supposed to be or why it was a reason he had failed to tell me he didn’t want to come before we’d left the apartment.
“Because I want carnitas. That’s it. I don’t want to say anything to anyone. I was hoping we could just get here and then you’d call off that part and then we could just have tacos. Pedro, please!”
“What the…” I said, fake-shocked. “Are you saying you’re using my families and me for our carnitas and nothing more?”
“Yes!” Charlie said, laughing at last. “Yes. Duh. Obviously.”
I chuckled, but then shook my head. “No. Look, fair is fair. Marcos made me sit through a weird, half description of how he got both Oliver and Mitch pregnant, so now I have to do the same to him. How else am I going to get him back?”
“Well, then, you’re no better. You’re using me for my body!”
“Yes, Charlie. Obviously. Duh,” I said, parroting his words back to him, which only made him giggle more.
“No, but seriously. We only found out today. Isn’t it normal to wait a bit?” he asked. “I mean, in the scheme of things, the baby doesn’t change anything, and I don’t want to make a big deal out of nothing.”
“Of course it changes things. It’s a baby!” I said before lowering my voice a little. We were sitting in the Acosta-Munoz-Thompson’s driveway, after all, and I definitely didn’t want to ruin my surprise before it was time. “And it’s not nothing, you’re—”
“I know! I know, but most people say to wait until after the first trimester. Just to make sure the pregnancy is real and that everything is okay. Maybe we should wait until then, go see Dr. Lemon first. We should really go see him and have it confirmed before we start throwing baby showers everywhere.” Charlie took his hands off the steering wheel and shrugged with both of his palms stretched open. “It could have been a false positive, you know?”
“Number one, yes, we should go see Dr. Lemon at some point, but I don’t think it has to be before we tell people,” I said in a tone of voice like I was explaining something to a little kid who refused to understand something really obvious. “Number two, we’re definitely not making a big deal out of nothing because, fine, even if it is a false positive, it’s still a big deal to me that we’re together, and I definitely want everyone to know about us. And, number three, it’s not like you’re going to ask for like four separate baby showers? That’s on them. You know they’re all going to react like that, and anyway, they won’t be throwing them until you’re about seven months or so. And…” I stared at him, like this final point was really important. “If you say you’re pregnant, Mami is going to want to feed you up. And if Mami wants to feed you up…” I waited, hoping he’d get what I was trying to say, hoping he didn’t actually realize I was tempting him into taking a bribe.
I mean, I was, though, right?
“Then, I might get…” Charlie said slowly, eyes lighting up like he was coming to a realization. “Carnitas!”
“That’s right. That way you’re using your own body to use my family for the carnitas. Everyone’s happy. Now, come on.” I jerked my head in the direction of the house. Charlie groaned, but climbed gracefully out of the car.
“What are you doing?” I asked Charlie as he walked up to the door and stood in front of it, waiting patiently for me to catch up with him to ring the doorbell.
“Uh… Going to Marcos’ house?”
I tutted, and then jabbed my head over to the side, to indicate the back of the house. “Mexican people don’t make carnitas indoors. Follow me,” I said, stepping around past the house into the yard.
Marcos wore a white undershirt and was sitting on a plastic chair by his firepit, which had a big copper cauldron suspended over it. He was stirring the contents of the copper pot with a big wooden spoon as Juanito crawled around the yard as fast as he could.
“You’re getting old! You look like Papi!” I yelled to announce our arrival.
“Ey, hombre!” Oliver yelled back as he stood at a foldable table that had been brought out to hold the marinade, the condiments, and the wrapped tortillas. He was standing next to Mitch and holding his hand as Mitch held a corn-on-the-cob on a stick.
“Okay, mayonnaise first,” Oliver said, coaching Mitch. “Then, roll it in the grated cheese. Good. Okay, now another coat of mayonnaise. Good.”
After trying to do a crawling lap on the grass around the firepit and around his Pa, Juanito noticed me and sat back, gurgling with a smile and his arms wide open.
I knew immediately what he wanted, and I swept him up and spun him around, which he thought was just the funniest thing that had ever happened.
“Hey, y’all!” Mitch called before Oliver hissed at him.
“Concentrate! This is the last one.”
Mitch suddenly stopped what he was doing and stared directly at Charlie and me.
“Ey!” Marcos yelled, not taking his eyes off the meat in the pot. “This batch is ready to come out. Get the tray.”
Mitch was still staring, but was also now whispering something to Oliver who looked up at us.
“Ey!” Marcos yelled again, but nobody really payed him much attention. The pair by the table was too busy looking at us while we were too busy looking at them.
“Ey!” Marcos yelled once more, unaware of anything that was going on around him except what concerned the carnitas. “Amor?”
“Mm?” answered Mitch, Oliver, and…embarrassingly…Charlie as all three reacted to the endearment.
Marcos looked up at hearing Charlie, who dropped his gaze as a pink flush climbed up his cheeks. Mitch jabbed Oliver in the ribs and Oliver rolled his eyes.
“A tray, for the love of god!” Marcos said in exasperation.
Mitch finally jogged over with the tray so they could start removing the carnitas from the heat. Oliver came over to where Charlie and I stood l
ooking like a couple of teenagers who had been caught doing god knows what.
“Come here, Juan,” he said, offering his arms to the baby who immediately went to his Papi.
“He’s getting so big so fast!” Charlie said, starting a neutral conversation while obviously trying to act casual. I internally winced because I knew it wasn’t working. Oliver chuckled, and then must have motioned to the house as he handed Charlie the baby as they both started off in that direction.
Mitch grinned as he passed me with the tray, no doubt going to interrogate Charlie, and though I knew Charlie could hold his own, I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.
“Fucking gross, dude,” Marcos said, before he got up to put the lid on the firepit to smother the fire. “Fucking gross.”
“You calling my boyfriend gross, Marcos?” I asked with a delighted grin, knowing I’d managed to trade how he’d made me feel a couple of weeks ago. I moved to help him break down the structure that had held the pot suspended over the fire. “You wanna fight about it?”
“No, I meant it’s fucking gross he’s with you, dude,” Marcos said as he shoved me ever so gently.
“H-h-ha ha ha.”
“Yeah, ha ha. So much for roommates, then.”
“Well, if you think about it, we’re still roommates. We’re just…more. You sure you don’t want the details? After all, it’s nothing to be grossed about, right? Even Mami and—”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up. I get it. Thank you.” He shook his head and made a face, but then he drew his brows together in a deep frown. “Wait…”
I could see the moment he remembered the conversation we’d been having when our roles were reversed. The conversation when he revealed both Mitch and Oliver were pregnant. Marcos suddenly went white, or as white as he was able to, anyway.
“Is he…”
“So help me god, you better not start in on anything because I’ll tell you what he’s not. He’s not purposefully knocked up in a half-brained scheme to save a coma patient’s life using a fake wedding announcement and a real pregnancy, unlike y’all.”
“Sometimes I wished it hadn’t worked,” Marcos grumbled.
“Rude,” I said, copying a mannerism of Charlie’s that I thought was really cute.
“Is it because of the bad batch of pills?” Marcos asked as he bound the poles we were taking down and got ready to store them in the shed behind the house.
“No. Well, I mean, I guess we technically got together because of the pills. But now… We love each other. It’s a good thing.”
Marcos returned from the shed, wiping his hands clean and fixing me with a very skeptical look.
“This is a good thing,” I repeated to convince him, which felt more like asking his permission, which kind of pissed me off. I did not need his permission to fucking fall in love.
Just then, the yells of two grown men squealing like little girls erupted from inside the house. It was the reaction of Charlie telling Mitch and Oliver. It had to be. That or they were slaughtering pigs in there. Either one.
“It’s a good thing, huh?” Marcos asked in a vaguely challenging tone. “Are you sure you’re ready? Seven months ago, you were still—”
“Fuck, Marcos! Seriously!”
“I told you I worry about you! Juanito’s a good baby, but even so, this parenting shit is hard! Not to mention the whole pregnancy part in the first place.”
“Okay, I get it. Really,” I said, realizing Marcos was just looking out for me. I gripped the top of his shoulder. “But I’ve been walking a lot better, practicing my motor skills. I haven’t had a seizure in like…forever. More than a month, if I had to guess. And my memory is awesome, dude. I’m coming all the way back, honestly.”
“Well,” Marcos said with a grumble and a side-eyed look at the house to make sure the omegas were still occupied. “I’m just saying you’ve most likely been doing good because you’ve probably been all relaxed and distracted and all lovey-dovey and shit, but what’s coming is stressful, really stressful, and Camden already told you about stress and—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’ll keep an eye out. I promise.”
Marcos seemed satisfied with that, or as satisfied as he was going to get. With pretty much everything done out here, Marcos gathered up the tray of corn-on-the-cob that Mitch and Oliver had long since forgotten.
“You and Charlie,” Marcos said, thoughtfully before he shrugged. “Never would have guessed. He can do better, man. Not for nothing but O’Rourke was handsome. You look like…well, you.”
“You and I look like each other, stupid,” I quipped, knocking him to the side with my elbow.
“Watch the tray, pendejo!”
And, with that, we walked back to the house together.
21
Charlie
Eventually, not even all his parents and the promise of a second jar of pureed sweet potatoes was enough to keep Juanito awake. Marcos scooped him up from Pedro’s shoulder and took him back into the house while we tidied up the deck. For all my groaning, it was comfortable here. Oliver and Mitch had both been elated at the news. Neither one of them seemed to question what I was doing with Pedro, and I realized that maybe some of that guilt had been self-imposed. I’d gotten so used to being Jason O’Rourke’s mourning fiancé, even I had forgotten maybe I could be something else. Mitch had wrapped his arms around me.
“You deserve this,” he had said. And, it was just what I needed to hear. I deserved to be able to step back into life with my friends, my family, and now with Pedro and… Well, our baby.
Once Marcos was back, the alphas got into the beer.
“Ugh, this is just the beginning of the miseries of pregnancy.” Mitch sighed, lounging in the cool breeze on his lawn chair.
“Don’t listen to him,” Oliver said.
“Um, excuse you. Yes, do listen to me. Seeing as I’m the only one who’s done it to completion.”
“That can’t be right,” Marcos said.
Mitch arched an eyebrow. “Is this you telling us a deep secret or something?”
Pedro snickered, shaking his head. “No, what he means is if you were the only one to have done it to completion, Oliver and Charlie wouldn’t be—”
“Knocked up,” Marcos finished, snorting.
“You two are terrible. That was not even that funny,” I said, smiling anyway.
Mitch shook his head. “No, I’ll tell you what’s not funny. Mr. Man over there nearly fainting in the delivery room.”
“I did not,” Marcos grumbled.
“You did so, you nearly passed out on the damn floor,” Oliver insisted.
“Wow, way to gang up on your alpha,” Marcos objected. “You two never let me win.”
“Oh, don’t worry, when we’re both screaming bloody murder and forcing your babies out of our—”
“Oh, god, don’t,” Pedro begged.
“All I’m saying is that between the stretch marks and the ankle swelling and the mood swings, you’ll definitely feel like you’re winning then,” Mitch said. “For real, though, I’d just gotten to the point I felt like my bladder was back to normal. This is your fault.” Mitch narrowed his eyes good naturedly. “It’s awful. It’s gross and painful, and it’s a thousand percent worth it.”
“Don’t listen to him. He’s just bitchy because we’d agreed I’d carry the next one, and Mitch thought he was in the clear this time.”
Mitch nodded. “You’re damn right I’m bitchy about it. After this one, I’m getting my tubes tied. No more weird, freaky shit with birth control. Fucking Paxium. They’re playing fast and loose with my ovaries, and I don’t like it.”
“You know, I’ve been reading some stuff. Y’all know that reporter, Joshua King? He’s saying it wasn’t the FDA or anything. He thinks the pills were, like, tampered with. Intentionally tampered with,” Marcos said.
Pedro snorted. “Oh, come on. That’s a little ridiculous, don’t you think?”
“What? Why?” Marcos asked.
“So he’s saying instead of the FDA just fucking up, which is a thing that happens in federal agencies, he thinks it’s some conspiracy theory?”
“I mean, it could have happened,” Marcos said.
Pedro sucked his teeth. “Well, yeah, hermano. But just because it could have happened doesn’t mean it did. You know what it was like in the army. They screwed shit up all the time.”
“Yeah, and they spent a lot of money making sure any mistakes that happened in orders or supply lines were their mistakes. They were always worried about things leaking in or things leaking out. It could be a thing,” Marcos suggested.
“But what’s the point of that? Why go through all that trouble?” Pedro asked.
“Well, if I owned one of the other, older companies, I’d probably want Paxium to fail, right?”
They continued debating as I watched on with interest, enjoying their friendly bickering until tempers eventually starting to fray between the two of them.
“Alright, alright,” Pedro said, leaning back and holding up his hand in supplication. “Let’s agree to disagree before we have to draw pistols and duel out in the yard,” he said.
“Oh, no, y’all don’t. We have neighbors. Can you imagine what Nancy in the Home Owner’s Association would say?” Mitch glanced at Oliver, his eyes wide.
“It would probably involve something like ‘bless your heart’ and a cease and desist letter.”
Marcos laughed, obviously having had to deal with Nancy.
“Besides, it’s getting late,” Pedro added. “Charlie needs to rest, and so do both of your crew.”
“Crew? Like, what? We’re part of some pirate ship?” Mitch shook his head, but then seemed to consider. “I’ll allow it, but only if I get to be the dashing Captain.”
“Nowhere near swarthy enough. Hard to be a swashbuckler when I’m having to chase you down with a bottle of SPF seventy every hour,” Oliver said.
I laughed, and Pedro and I made eye contact before getting up and starting our goodbyes.
I hugged Mitch extra tight. “Thank you,” I told him.
